Olive Garden Eat Your Heart Out!

So, I have yet to try any recipes from my new book. I did go grocery shopping and while I got tons of great, tasty stuff, (I went when I was hungry...yummy for the tummy, but not so happy for the bank account) I didn't get anything that I needed for ANY of the new recipes.

Anyhoo, I had been craving chicken alfredo for quite some time. I don't think I've had that meal since I was living in Tucson and went to Macaroni Grill, ate delicious chicken alfredo and subsequently became violently ill afterward. I've stayed away from it since. I don't think I need to tell you why.

A couple of weeks ago, Brad was camping with the dogs and I was alone for a couple days. Really alone. It's different when there aren't even any animals to babble to. I really enjoyed it for the first couple of days, but then I got lonely, bored and inventive! Alfredo sauce? Who did I think I was? I don't even remotely know how to make such a luxurious sauce much less one without a ton of gut-wrenching dairy! But I popped on some tunes, poured myself a glass of wine and rolled up my sleeves. I browsed a few recipes online. The dairy-free, vegan sauces sounded horrid and the traditional ones made my stomach turn. So this is what I did:

1/4 c. Earth Balance
1 can coconut milk (in loo of the heavy cream)
4-5 baby bella mushrooms
2 chicken breasts
1 1/4 c. shredded cheddar style goat cheese from TJs
8 leaves fresh basil (from my herb garden yay!)
Salt and Pepper to taste

Cut chicken into bite size pieces and cook in a little olive oil. Melt earth balance and saute the mushrooms and half of the basil. Add coconut milk and bring to a boil. Turn down to low heat, add chicken, S&P and rest of basil. Slowly stir in goat cheese. I also added a dash of xanthan gum because I was afraid it wouldn't thicken, but in retrospect, I don't think that was necessary. Let simmer on low heat and sauce will thicken nicely on it's own. Add your GF noodles to the water you've so thoughtfully already started boiling!

One word: YUM! It was divine! It was heavenly! It was rich and creamy! It did NOT cause a night bowing to the porcelain god! I am grateful for goats! Take that cows!

Petit Fours

Oh hell, yeah. I made these.

These were made with a layer of strawberry cake, a layer of strawberry butter cream, a layer of chocolate cake and then covered with chocolate icing. The piping was done with a simple buttercream and the shimmery stuff is edible shimmer powder I got from Michael's.

I'm making them again for a friend's daughter's birthday party and have altered the recipe a bit. I felt the strawberry cake tasted too "GF" and the chocolate cake was not chocolatey enough. For the next round I adjusted the chocolate genoise recipe, subbing 2 tbl of almond meal for 2 of sorghum and 2 tbl of cocoa powder for 2 of the starches. The result was just what I was looking for. No one would suspect it was GF. I haven't done the strawberry yet, but I think I will adjust the plain genoise recipe by subbing in some almond meal, some strawberry jello and maybe some puree, but I hesitate because of the liquid content. Tricky business.

New Adventures

I just bought a new cookbook and I'm pretty excited to try some of the recipes.  I will post my adventures as they happen!  Stay tuned, there might be some great ones! 

Brownies

Made these and they were heavenly. I like the idea of using almond flour but it's so damn expensive. Bought some online for less, so we'll try a few more recipes soon.

Churrrrrros!

Caila just graduated from college with two degrees and for her grad party she wanted something special and ambitious: churros. My initial response: hell, yes.

I set to work to figure out how the make churros in the first place, let alone make gluten-free churros. Turns out it was not too complicated. In the grand scheme of things, that is.

There were actually several recipes for gluten free churros online, but the ingredient lists didn't look too exciting. Once I realized it was just a fried pate choux, I headed straight to my fave sweets website by Karen Morgan. I used this recipe for the pate choux and just gleaned cooking instructions from other websites.

They were an enormous success. Not just to the GF folks. Everyone at the party stopped to thank me for the amazing churros, several said they were the best they'd ever had. The fact that they were gluten free was beside the point. This is the first time I've made a GF remake of a wheat treat that got this kind of response instead of "it's good for gluten free."

Churros (adapted from Karen Morgan)

For the Pate Choux:

2 large eggs + 1 egg white (enough for 2/3 c.)

¾ teaspoon baking powder

5 tablespoons unsalted butter

1 ½ tablespoons granulated sugar

¼ teaspoon salt

5 tablespoons water

2 tablespoons half n’ half

1 tablespoon sorghum flour

2 tablespoons tapioca flour

5 tablespoons cornstarch

1 teaspoon guar gum

Preheat oven to 425ºF and line a cookie sheet with a silpat or parchment paper and set aside.

In a heavy-bottomed saucepan, melt the butter, water, half n’ half, sugar and salt over a medium-low flame until the butter has melted completely and the mixture has just come to a gentle boil.

In a small bowl, combine all the remaining dry ingredients, except the baking powder and stir to combine.

Pour eggs and egg white into a measuring cup, whisk thoroughly, and set aside.

After your butter has come to a boil, add your dry ingredients and stir with a wooden spoon, using a scraping motion, for three minutes. Once the dough pulls easily from the sides of the pan, and there is a thin veil of butterfat residue on the bottom of the pan, your dough is ready.

Immediately transfer dough to a food processor with the blade attachment or mixer with paddle attachment and pulse for 20 seconds to cool slightly. Add baking powder to the eggs and whisk until smooth. Pour egg mixture in a slow steady stream into the food processor or mixer until you have a thick, smooth sticky paste, about 1 ½ minutes.

Heat 32 ounces of cooking oil in a heavy bottomed pan to 380 degrees.

Fill a pastry bag with the largest star tip available.

Pipe churros directly into the oil. This takes practice. Let the end of the pate choux hit the oil as though you are piping it onto a cookie sheet made of hot, scalding oil. Be careful!

Fry the churros, turning as they brown, and drain on paper towels.

I eyeballed the sugar/cinnamon mixture and used caster sugar (superfine cane sugar). Dredge the churros in the sugar/cinnamon mixture then attempt to not eat every churro immediately. I used a large pyrex dish with a lid and shook the churros and sugar mix in that instead of dredging individually.

Banana Muffins

Trying this tonight. Let you know how it turns out.

Sale

Hows about we alert each other whenever one of our favorite super-expensive GF items is on sale?

I'll go first:

Erewhon brand rice crispies are on sale at Sunflower for 2.99. Great for rice crispie treats! I bought four boxes.

Also, I hope you've all jumped on the strawberry band wagon. 97 cents a pound, are you kidding me?? I bought and froze 12 pounds already.